In view of the fading credibility of Turkey’s EU membership bid, the impact of EU conditionality on policy change in Turkey seems to be weakening. However, Turkey has recently tackled three key demands of the EU related to migration policy: Ankara negotiated a readmission agreement with the European Commission, drafted a law on border management and passed a law on foreigners and international protection. Based on four series of interviews with officials of EU member states, Turkey and the European Commission I argue that the EU still has an important transformative influence on domestic policy change: (1) a community of Europeanized bureaucrats still consider the membership incentive as an important motivation for reform, (2) the European Commission was able to incorporate the visa liberalization process as an additional incentive, (3) in the implementation of IPA-funds the EU exerts influence via conditional acceptance of certain projects and socialization processes
